Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Mon Dieu...You're Soooo Post Modern

Back when I was a Terp, I found myself in a course taught by one of the most interesting people I've ever encountered. His name was Metcalf, and he was a Georgia-bred former-hand-model-turned- film-critic-turned-professor. The man was memorizing. He knew everything about every movie, book, movement, etc and taught class wearing sunglasses and chugging two liter bottles of RC Cola.

I found the course interesting, inspiring and entertaining... so you can imagine my surprise when I realized (quite far into the semester) I wasn't actually "enrolled," per se. Turns out you actually have to "go online" and "properly register" to be in a class. To be fair, I didn't realize that 'University of Maryland' is code for Nazi Germany. My B.

Undeterred, I continued to make the mile-long trek through College Park to class with my two roommates who, you know... belonged there. I turned in assignments and had an almost perfect attendance. Though I basically wasted my time, lost credits and prolonged my already...how shall I put this..."overdue" graduation, I did walk away with a few feathers in my cap.

I had planned on completing the 15 page final paper on post-modernism and some shit, but then I opened my freezer and saw I had a bottle of Kentucky Gentleman's finest and proceeded to get hammered and chain smoke in direct view of my registrationally-unchallenged roommates while they were writing their papers. BOOM. Totally scored an apathy feather. The second feather came during a in-class screening of Last Year at Marienbad. I was able to see through all the black and white surrealism and fixate on the sweet matchstick game, Nimm.

The characters play it throughout the whole movie, and if you've seen the film and played Nimm, one can assume that the game serves as a mirror of the plot; it is almost impossible to win or get what you want unless you go first. Or was it; if you play with matches you will catch on fire? Whatever, I said I wasn't actually enrolled.